5 rules for chosing a CMS and our favorites

We love WordPress, we really do. and 90% of the time it is the right choice for our clients. But, there are times when WordPress just won’t cut it. Why? Because it isn’t supposed to! Different CMSs offer different strengths. So what should you consider?

1. A CMS shouldn’t have tons of extra features.

   You don’t want to use a e-commerce platform for a portfolio site, so why would you use it for a client that just wants to display their products, but not sell them? Carefully plan out the features that you will need to implement and try to find a system that has what you need and not too much exta (unless you know that you will be adding an e-commerce solution in the near future).

2. A CMS should be well documented and have support.

   You wouldn’t drive a car without an owner’s manual and your web development should be no different. You don’t want to use a CMS that either has no online community or  support. Instead you want to chose one with a vibrant community of developers or one that is enterprise level and comes with some technical support.

3. A CMS should do what needs to be done well.

   WordPress is great, fantastic and pretty much awesome. But it doesn’t do everything well. There are some types of sites that stretch and push it to its limits. While you can use it as a CMS, it frequently requires the addition of plugins (such as Pods or Flutter). If you need an e-commerce site, and that is the main purpose, you should be considering e-commerce solutions and evaluating them on the ability to add features – does it play nice with your WordPress blog? Can you add a blog or file uploader? Start with the main purpose and work outward.

4. The end user needs to be able to use the CMS you choose

   If your back-end is too complicated for someone who is not all that sophisticated when it comes to technology, your client, or end user is going to end up just as unhappy as he/she was with a static site that required entering into the code. Making sure that the interface is intuitive for a non-technical user with minimal training is a must. (When in doubt, call your mom or grandma – or other non-techy type -  and see if they can figure it out)

5. You should not have to expend a significant amount of additional development time on your design.

   It always takes extra time to develop for a CMS over a static site, however, chosing one system over another should not increase your development time. If there are too many hurdles that you have to jump through to make your site look nice or behave, then you need to move on and look at additional resources.

What are the best options out there? Well, there are many to choose from, some more popular than others. Each of these systems has its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

Content Management

WordPress (with Pods or Flutter)

WordPress makes an excellent CMS – with the addition of one of the two plugins listed. It is simple to use and fairly intuitive. I wouldn’t use it for a site with more than about 20 pages.

Drupal

An open-source solution with an active developer community, this CMS is great if you need a bit more flexibility than WordPress allows. It has modules that allow it to be exended into just about any type of site (including blogs & e-commerce)

SilverStripe

This is my latest obsession. Object oriented PHP and a custom PHP framework that was designed with the CMS for maximum flexibility. It uses a custom template extension, but for the most part, if you can handle PHP, HTML and CSS, this content management system is a breeze to work with. I am actively campaigning for people who use WordPress for everything to give this one a try, it might actually save you some development time. Oh, and the book is available at Amazon (SilverStripe: The Complete Guide to CMS Development (Wiley)). The book sold out the first day it was available, and has since been restocked. I reccomend at least trying this one out. You will love it. There is a ton of control for SEO on a page by page basis without any additional work.

Concrete5

Is another open-source project that relies on OOP and MVC (acronyms galore!) It offers in-place editing and many available extensions (although, they will charge you for some of them). There is a lot of flexibility in this system, and although I am not well versed in it, it looks to be an interesting option that I am going to have to use when I get the chance.

E-commerce

Magento

There really is nothing that compares with Magento. There is an open source version that is free to use as well as an enterprise level solution that comes with technical support and will set you back a nice chunk of change. Magento was born as an open-source project, so the core product is available for download. It is a robust and well-documented solution.

Lemon Stand

Currently in beta, this e-commerce app is designed to make managing e-commerce a breeze. You can even edit the code (HTML, CSS) from within the app itself. Looks promising.

Zen Cart

Is a popular choice amongst developers and is supported in a 1-click installation on many web hosts. It is meant to be easy to install even for beginners and boasts a large community of users for support.

About mary fran

Mary Fran has been obsessed with the web for over 12 years. She owns Purple Crayon Web Studio. She is a seasoned web developer and this year she finally decided to write this blog.